


Flashback

by Toinette93



Category: Queen (Band)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood and Injury, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Not Beta Read, POV Roger, The other two are only mentioned in there, not a native speaker, set vaguely in the 70s, short oneshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-19 19:17:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22069732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toinette93/pseuds/Toinette93
Summary: The glass broke. He had to run.---I wanted to try writing a flashback scene and also a somewhat consistent internal POV. And, well, being myself, it ended up as a pile of angst, to begin 2020.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 24





	Flashback

Is that blood? Yes, red, smelling of iron, flowing, dripping, it appears to be blood. Whose blood though? Now that’s an important question. He hopes it’s his own. Oh please make it be mine. Fuck, now he’s almost praying and he does not even believe in God. He’s running out towards the door and the quantity seems to still be increasing. Definitely his own. Oh thank the god of race cars and strippers, it’s his own. From the glass he was holding in his hand, maybe? Is that broken? He looks at his right hands. Oh, yeah, there are some glass shards in it, and that’s where the blood is coming from. Quite a bit of it. But it’s his blood not hers. Jean, was it? Or Joanna? Anyhow, he has not hurt her.

“Roger, what’s wrong?”

He hears, but does not react. She seems scared. He must leave. He has not hurt her. Will not hurt her. The bruises on her face are not from him. He slams the door. She probably calls after him but he does not hear anymore. Must run to the car. I can’t go back there. I’ve put blood on the carpet. The other, he’ll beat me up for it. Have to run. He’s hit her already, not make it worse. Can his heart really beat that fast? Yes, answer the biology courses, probably not healthy on the long run but quite possible. The stairs. Don’t fall off the stairs. Now that would be ironic if the excuse was true for once, but don’t fall down the stairs. It was years ago Rog, comments a somewhat sedate part of his brain. But it’s now, answer the rest, screaming. There were bruises on her faces, and there is blood on his hand. His own blood, not hers. He’s not the one who hurt her, he knows that, oh thank heaven it’s his own blood.

Car, the car is there. Car keys, they are in his trouser pockets. Is that thing still bleeding? Yes it is. The car keys are sticky. Open the door. Get the ignition on. First gear. Get out. Glad he was not parked too tight. Home is probably too far. You can’t go all the way home, Rog, the rational part of his brain chirps in, you’re loosing blood and you’re drunk. Probably should not be driving at all. Good thing it’s the middle of the night and the streets are mostly empty. Still bumping a bit in the sidewalk, though. Now, the rational part of the brain does not seem to provide information as to where he should go, what he should do. Just what he should avoid. He’s still driving, to somewhere. Fifteen minutes drive. He starts feeling a bit dizzy. Maybe he should have tried to stop the blood. But it’s good. It’s his blood, not anyone else’s. It’s important, that. His own blood. It’s slowing down a bit anyhow. He stops, haphazardly parking his car almost on the sidewalk, bumping his head his the steering wheel in the process. Will probably get a bruise of his own. He retrieves a small key from the glove compartment. “You’re here at least once a week. You might as well get a key to the outside door, so I don’t have to walk all the way through the boiler room every time your forget your drumsticks, Rog”.

He opens the door, goes down through the boiler room, in automatic mode. He goes up the stairs and rings at the door. Boiler room, crappy building, he’s at Brian’s, his brain finally supplies. Why would he have come here? It’s three in the bloody morning, he’s gonna wake him up. At least Chrissie is not here, she’s at her parent’s this week. Why does he even know that? He should just… But too late. He hears a grouching growl on the other side of the door, and steps. The soundproofing of this flat is abysmal. Always has been. He leans on the wall on his left. His heart beat seems to be slowing down a bit, and he’s really dizzy now.

“Rog, what are you doing here?”

Did he miss the door opening? Yes, seems like it. Tall, impossibly skinny, loads of hair, annoyed at being woken up, and very sober, yep, that’s Brian alright. He’s probably talking to him. He should pay attention.

“Roger are you drunk?”

Yes, of course he’s drunk, it’s 3am on a Friday evening. Well, Saturday morning. Doesn’t matter. Though that’s only part of the problem.

“Shit Rog, is that blood? Are you alright?”

Not alright, no he’s starting to sag down the wall a bit. Whether it’s the down from the adrenaline, the alcohol or the blood loss he does not know. “Hi, Bri” he says. A few seconds later, he has an arm around his waist and is being manhandled into the small room. Someone has put all the lights on. He’s sat down on the couch, tweezers are taking the small pieces of glass out of his hand – should not do that, he thinks, might make the bleeding worse – and then there is a cloth pressing down hard on his palm. It fucking hurts. Roger belatedly notices it probably should have hurt before. It had not, somehow. The bleeding seems to have stopped, mostly. There is a bandage on his hand and his feet have been propped up on a stool. He did not know Brian had taken first aid courses, he muses. Although, anxious as he is it does seem to make sense that he would.

“Roger, talk to me, can you hear me.”

There is a hand on his shoulders. Squeezing. He blinks. A friend’s hand. He’s fine. He’s safe. He has not hurt her, and his getting beat is not now. It is – was – a long time ago. It is something that used to be, that will not happen again. He’s an adult, not a child. The blur in his vision fades. He’s in Brian’s flat, on his couch, and the guitarist is looking at him with a scared expression on his face. He should answer.

“Yes, Brian, I can hear you. I’m not deaf, you know.”

Brian does not look happy at the dismissal.

“Bloody hell Roger” he says, handing him a glass of water that the drummer thankfully downs in one go. “You scared me half to death. You did not seem to be there for a little bit.The cut is small enough even if it bled a lot, thankfully. And it’s stopped now, at least. Did you break a glass in your hand?”

“Yeah, I guess I did. Must have been drunker than I thought. Ended up at yours for some reason. Sorry for waking you up, mate. I’ll let you sleep, I can go home now.”

Now an angry Brian is usually something he can take. It is frequent enough and to be honest he kind of enjoys riling the man up. Well, up until he gets riled up himself, usually about 5 minutes later, and then a screaming match ensues. It is how their friendship works and most days, it is a lot of fun. Freddie’s diplomatic capabilities and John’s quiet mockery of their occasional falling outs has made things easier in the past few years, also. But right now the exasperation in the guitarist eyes is hard to differentiate from a properly murderous gaze, and it’s almost scary.

“You’re not going anywhere.” There is a hand on his chest, pushing him down. “It’s after 3am, you’re not going to walk halfway across London drunk while having lost a pint of blood. You’re sleeping here.”

A pint is definitely an exaggeration, Roger thinks. Probably not the right moment to point that out though.

“I’ve got my car. It’s a twenty minutes drive”

Roger knows the moment he closes his mouth it was the wrong thing to say.

“You drove here? In that… Do you have any survival instinct, at all? Well, you smoke, so obviously not much, but still. You could have crashed, and died, or just… Come on Rog, really?”

The guitarist hand are in his hair, pulling at the curls. Roger would normally resent the part about smoking, and it’s not as if walking would have been a better idea, but the guitarist does have a point – he has not noticed the bump of Roger’s head for parking a bit roughly and the drummer is not going to point it out to him – and he is too spent to argue anyway. Also he knows the guitarist is angry because he was scared and besides it’s not polite to argue with someone that has your blood on his pyjamas. So he just raises his hands in surrender, forgetting about his injury and winces. That has at least the effect of stopping Brian’s rant.

“You ok?”

“Yeah, don’t worry, just hurts a bit.” then he yawns.

Brian shoots Roger a pointed look at the “don’t worry bit”, but does not comment further.

“Go to bed, Rog, it’s almost four in the morning and you look exhausted.”

“If you wanted to get me to bed, you just had to ask” he winks.

“Oh, shut up, Rog,”

“No, but seriously, I can sleep on the couch” That’s unlikely, the couch is really small, but it will be even smaller fo tall Brian.

“Don’t worry, I was not exactly sleeping much anyway, got a melody turning in my head, I’ll just go and write it down, maybe then I can nap tomorrow, it’s Saturday.”

Roger knows he probably should argue, knowing his friend rarely gets enough sleep as a general rule, but he does not have the energy. Brian hands him a shirt, and looking down, Roger notices his own had quite a bit of blood on it. He changes in the bathroom and crashes on the bed. He has been afraid he would not be able to sleep, that he would be too wound up, still, but the soft sound of an un-plugged electric guitar strumming some quiet chords lulls him to a quiet sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy new year everyone !  
> I would like to point out that I was in fact not drunk nor hungover while writing this, I have therefore no excuses. Hope you enjoyed the ride.  
> I do not know how understandable the whole thing is (it is meant to be somewhat vague, but I hope it's still possible to have an idea of what is going on). This was really an experiment as I am usually not exactly confortable with internal POVs, writingin present tense or flashbacks for that matter. So, feedback would be quite welcome :-) .  
> Thanks again for reading  
> Cheers


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